


When She Sings, I Hear A Symphony

by whovianmuse



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whovianmuse/pseuds/whovianmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Companion Piece:</b> <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1151974">And I'm Swallowed In Sound As It Echoes Through Me</a></p><p> </p><p>
  <i>The Doctor folds the black and gold front cover of the tattered old detective novel across its crinkled spine, his fingertips tracing the faded words scattered across its pages…words that had predicted the deaths of his companions…words that had forever set their timelines in stone. The Doctor feverishly tears through its worn, yellowing pages, relieved to have it back after several months without its company, desperate to discover that its plot had somehow been rewritten…that he had found a way to bring them back home…that Amelia Pond and Rory Williams would, at any moment, waltz through the doors of the TARDIS, and this horrific nightmare would come to an end.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	When She Sings, I Hear A Symphony

**Author's Note:**

> The Afterword by Amelia Williams was borrowed from episode 7x05: _The Angels Take Manhattan_. The title was inspired by the song _Stay Young, Go Dancing_ by Death Cab For Cutie.

**Afterword, by Amelia Williams:**

_Hello, old friend, and here we are. You and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone, so know that we lived well, and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you, always. Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think, once we’re gone, you won’t be coming back here for a while, and you might be alone, which you should never be. Don’t be alone, Doctor. And, do one more thing for me. There’s a little girl waiting in a garden. She’s going to wait a long while, so she’s going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she’s patient, the days are coming that she’ll never forget. Tell her she’ll go to sea and fight pirates. She’ll fall in love with a man who’ll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she’ll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, and save a whale in outer space. Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends._

 

• • •

 

            The Doctor folds the black and gold front cover of the tattered old detective novel across its crinkled spine, his fingertips tracing the faded words scattered across its pages…words that had predicted the deaths of his companions…words that had forever set their timelines in stone. The Doctor feverishly tears through its worn, yellowing pages, relieved to have it back after several months without its company, desperate to discover that its plot had somehow been rewritten…that he had found a way to bring them back home…that Amelia Pond and Rory Williams would, at any moment, waltz through the doors of the TARDIS, and this horrific nightmare would come to an end.

            But of course, nothing had changed…time hadn’t been rewritten, because the Doctor had never come back to rescue them. As he reads to the very end, the plot of _Melody Malone_ twists and turns and breaks his hearts all over again…a stitched and bound replica of that fateful night on April 3rd, 1938, that only serves to remind him of his mistakes. Even Amelia’s afterword, printed on the very last page of the novel that the Doctor had torn out on his final day with the Ponds, reveals nothing more than the bittersweet, familiar old words he’d long ago memorized by heart. He tucks the wrinkled, torn-out piece of paper back into the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, and buries his face in the palms of his hands.

            Melody Malone, elusive author of the best-selling detective series of the same penname, and sole employee of the Manhattan-based _Angel Detective Agency_ , stands in the center of the TARDIS console, swathed in a beige overcoat, a silken black dress, and black stilettos, her dark red lipstick the exact shade of the woman on the front cover of the detective novel. Her scarlet-painted fingernails drum an unsteady rhythm against the delicate fabric of her purse as she waits for the Doctor to finish re-reading her premier novel, along with her mother’s afterword. Finally, after what seems like ages of unpleasant silence, the Doctor looks up at her, his expression a mingled mess of curiosity and surprise, as though he’d forgotten that she’d been standing there this entire time, and swipes at a rogue tear across his left cheek.

            “Have you found them this time?” the Doctor asks, an irrepressible sob writhing in his chest. The Doctor’s wife hesitates for a moment, a flurry of emotions flickering across her face before she chooses a well-worn masque, and strolls across the brightly lit, glowing glass floors of the TARDIS console room, her expression a façade of poise and composure. She trails her hands across the Doctor’s shoulders, winds her way down the curves of his arms, and entwines her fingers with his, the coils of her wild, dark blonde curls gently brushing against his skin. She gives the palm of his hand a comforting squeeze, offering him a surreptitious smile that dances on the edge of melancholia.

            “River, _tell me_ that you’ve found them,” he pleads, locking his swollen, red-rimmed eyes onto hers. River can’t help but cringe at the exhaustion and hopelessness she finds etched into every detail of his features. Despite the fact that she had always tried her hardest to never let him see the damage, the Doctor had never given River the same courtesy. After all, it has been seven hellish years of self-loathing and disappointment for the both of them, made worse by the fact that they’d had to spend the majority of that time apart. The moment following Amelia’s last farewell, the Doctor had taken off to find the novel’s afterword, had spent the rest of the evening perched on a lonely old park bench in New York, burning Amelia’s letter into his memory.

            River could only imagine what the Doctor got up to whenever she was off exploring 20th century New York. River had assumed, judging by the state of him, that the Doctor no longer travelled, but had instead imprisoned himself within the console room and had done nothing but peruse Amelia’s afterword, clinging onto the memory of her, and waiting on River’s return. Meanwhile, River had traveled to the past to find her mother and father, and to deliver the Doctor’s copy of Melody Malone to Amelia to have published, which proved to be an arduous task, given that the publication date, as well as the details regarding the publishing company itself, did not appear anywhere within the novel.

            Searching for Amy and Rory via Vortex Manipulator was a difficult and impractical mission at best, and the Doctor had always been keen to remind River that time travel with the use of such a volatile device was foolish enough as it was. Nevertheless, the Doctor had been forced to admit that attempting to land the TARDIS in the middle of a city plagued by a massive paradoxical event was next to impossible, that it would destroy the entire state if he even dared try. So River had taken on the challenge alone, and the Doctor had remained in the TARDIS, anxiously awaiting her arrival.

            Every few months, as promised, River would lock onto the TARDIS’ coordinates and materialize inside the console room, just to check up on him, to let him know that she was still alive, and that, even after all of the years of pain and misery and loneliness, she still hadn’t given up on trying to find her parents. And, like clockwork, within seconds of her arrival, the Doctor would steal the battered old detective novel from her grasp and race through its pages, hoping for a twist, for an alternate ending…but the story never changed, because River had never found them.

            That is…until now.

            River’s smile twists into a mischievous grin as she releases the Doctor’s hands and thrusts her own deep into the pockets of her overcoat. A moment later, she withdraws a slim, black device with a collection of colorful buttons and nodules. As delicately as she can manage, River tugs at the Doctor’s forearm and fastens the device across his wrist, plugging in a complicated code of coordinates as the Doctor struggles against her. With a gentle flex of her fingers, River steadies the Doctor’s arm, and fixes him with a playful glare, daring him to challenge her. With a rush of understanding, the Doctor’s eyes grow wide, and every muscle in his body simultaneously tenses and unravels beneath her touch.

            “You _have_ found them,” he whispers, relief flooding his senses, penetrating thick layers of cynicism and incredulity.

             “Now you’re getting it,” River smirks, tightening the wrist strap. “I promised you that I would find them, did I not? Mind you, it took an _infuriatingly_ long time to track them down…then again, you’ll know all about that,” she frowns, thinking back on those long and lonely years, fracturing her time between scouring New York for her parents and comforting her husband in light of their absence.

            “River, _how_ did you find them?“ the Doctor chokes out, his eyes swimming with tears.

            “We were right, you know, all along,” River sighs, fiddling with the wrist strap, and pointedly avoiding the Doctor’s stare. “The Angel in the graveyard sent them back to that very same evening in 1938, to the very same building, just as we’d thought it would. Except, now that the Angels that had claimed the Winter Quay never existed, Amy and Rory were free to leave the building, to live out the rest of their lives together…decades before they’d ever been born. I spent _seven years_ tracking them down, and in 1945, I finally found them…delivered the novel, waited as mum typed up the manuscript, and…asked her to write your afterword.”

            “Are they…are they _together_? Are they _happy_?” the Doctor asks, clinging onto a sliver of hope.

            “I think…that it would far better if you were to ask them yourself,” River teases, her lips curving into a smile as her fingertips trace circles in the palms of his hands.

            “Would you like to see them?” she elaborates.

            “ _Of course_ ,” he breathes, his smile growing impossibly wider. In that moment, it’s all he can do not to laugh like he’s just escaped death…because finding Amelia Pond…having the chance to see her again, well…that’s exactly what this feels like. And then it occurs to him…he hasn’t a clue where to find Amy and Rory if something should go wrong, if he were to accidentally end up somewhere else…what name they’ve listed themselves under, or where they might live. After all, Manhattan is a massive, ever-growing city…they could be anywhere.

            He purses his lips, queuing up his queries, but before he can speak, River smiles and presses the detective novel into his hands. Curious, the Doctor pages through the novel once again, and comes to a stop as he reaches the end. All that remains of Amelia’s afterword is a serrated line of paper remnants, held together by a thin strip of thread and glue, but that isn’t what catches his attention. On the inside of the back cover, composed in thick black ink no more than a couple of hours old, is a handwritten address.

            “Now,” River says, firmly grasping his wrist. “I’ll be waiting for you here, so all you need to do when you come back is lock onto the TARDIS’ coordinates.”

            The Doctor nods in understanding, far too distracted to really contemplate what she’s saying. She twists his wrist sharply, garnering his attention.

            “And, one more thing….before you visit them, I need you to do me a favor.”

            “Of course, anything,” he whispers, eyeing her cautiously.

            “There’s a little girl wandering the streets of New York in 1969, not too far from her mum and dad’s home,” River says, a wry smile curving across her lips. “She’s lost, she’s cold, and she’s very much alone. I need you to find her, and take her home. She deserves to grow up with her family…twice, even.”

            “Who is she?” the Doctor asks, eyebrows arched in confusion.

            River leans in close, presses a soft, lingering kiss to his lips, and smiles.

            “Spoilers,” she whispers, and the instant she presses the trigger, the Doctor vanishes from the console room.


End file.
